deconstruct

During a rambling and largely nonsensical presser in Los Angeles on Friday, Trump constantly tripped over himself, outright rejecting important questions from reporters while making absurd claims, such as the fact that the country was “perfect” in January 2021.

In one portion of his speech, Trump badly botched the name of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, by referring to her as “Comrade Howard” while shaking his head. He also referred to Harris as a “radical left Marxist Communist fascist,” an ideological combination that is technically impossible, and attacked her for her “woman-made destruction.”

Shortly after the speech ended, Trump had one final thought to share, which he posted in brief on Truth Social: “#.” At the time of publication, the post had more than 2,700 likes.

In another bizarre attempt to “own the libs” just by confusing them, openly anti-LGBTQ+ performer Kid Rock has been enlisted to headline a fundraiser for the self-loathing Log Cabin Republicans, the gay conservatives group.

The onetime Detroit rapper-now MAGA acolyte will headline the fundraiser “Red White & Rock,” the LCR announced over the weekend. The gay conservatives billed the event as a “star-studded concert uniting conservatives and celebrating American spirit.”

The high-dollar event takes place in Nashville on September 29, with special guests Richard Grenell, Donald Trump’s out, onetime acting director of National Intelligence in the last, chaotic days of the twice-impeached president’s administration, and forever-fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle, who’ll serve as emcee of the event, if never Donald Trump Jr’s bride.

For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.

But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.

As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.

So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.

Asking to leave work on time or taking some time off can be tricky enough. Even trickier is tendering a resignation, which can be seen as the ultimate form of disrespect in the world’s fourth-biggest economy, where workers traditionally stick with one employer for decades, if not for a lifetime.

In the most extreme cases, grumpy bosses rip up resignation letters and harass employees to force them to stay.

Yuki Watanabe was unhappy at her previous job, saying her former supervisor often ignored her, making her feel bad. But she didn’t dare resign.

“I didn’t want my ex-employer to deny my resignation and keep me working for longer,” she told CNN during a recent interview.

Robert Morris, who founded and led Gateway Church for nearly 25 years in the affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Texas, resigned after the scandal came to light in June. His exit sent thousands of evangelicals into a season of struggle that has lasted months.

Last week, a pastor who oversaw all of Gateway’s campuses departed amid an undisclosed “moral issue,” becoming the latest in a series of changes for the church: The cancellation of its annual conference. The departure of Morris’ successor. The renaming of its Houston campus and an exodus of worshippers.

At each weekend service, worshippers continue to face reminders of the scandal, with interim or guest pastors kicking off their sermons saying “I’m sorry,” talking about grief or finding hope in difficult times. They’ve noticed people who have sat and prayed around them for years are once again not showing up for service.

The church has seen a decrease of 17% to 19% in weekend services attendance, a church spokesperson told CNN.

A man who beat a 66-year-old Sikh man to death while calling him “turban man” after a fender bender in New York City has been charged with manslaughter as a hate crime, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Gilbert Augustin, 30, also faces charges including assault as a hate crime and unlicensed driving in the Oct. 19 death of Jasmer Singh, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced.

Prosecutors said Augustin called Singh “turban man” during an argument that followed their crash on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens.

The family of Singh, who wore a turban as part of his Sikh religious practice, had pushed for hate crime charges to be filed against Augustin.

The altercation began after Singh’s Toyota collided with Augustin’s Ford Mustang. Both men pulled over and Augustin got out of his car and confronted Singh, prosecutors said.

A witness said Augustin said “No police, no police” and repeatedly referred to Singh as “turban man” as they argued, prosecutors said.

A popular drug used to regrow hair and thicken thinning locks in both men and women may be difficult to find in some pharmacies, according to new research.

The pill, called minoxidil, must be taken every day for patients to maintain the progress they've made in restoring hair growth. An interruption could be devastating.

"You can go backwards and start losing your hair again," said Dr. Adam Friedman, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University.

Minoxidil is often used for androgenetic alopecia, also known as male or female pattern hair loss. It's a condition that affects nearly half of men and about a quarter of women by age 50, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology.

In recent months, Friedman noticed that his patients were having difficulty obtaining 30-day supplies of the drug from their Washington, D.C.-area pharmacies.

Earlier this month, he and colleagues called 277 pharmacies in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia to ask about their minoxidil supplies. They found considerable shortages.

Just 40% of those pharmacies had the ability to immediately fill 30-day prescriptions for minoxidil in doses used to treat hair loss (2.5 milligrams). The research has been published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.

Friedman could not identify a reason for the shortage, but said that the drug had been gaining attention through both mainstream and social media — which could have triggered a rise in prescriptions.

When X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk changed his platform’s verification system, he ushered in a new reality where fringe conspiracy theorists could easily promote false claims about breaking news. That happened again shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, as Media Matters found numerous heavily followed verified accounts claiming that the tragedy was actually a “false flag” attack that was staged or orchestrated by the government.

As the Guardian defined it, the concept of a false flag event “is the idea that powerful forces routinely arrange massacres or terrorist atrocities, and make it appear as if some other individual or group did them, in order to achieve their sinister political goals.” Conspiracy theorists have routinely claimed that mass shootings and other atrocities, including 9/11, were false flags.

Following the deadly October 25 mass shootings in Maine, numerous verified X accounts with tens of thousands of followers claimed that they were a “false flag” or planned by the government.

Rumble host and bigot Laura Loomer, who seems to have the direct attention of former President Donald Trump, raised doubts about the shooting on her formerly banned X account, which has more than 630,000 followers.

Berlin-based business consultant Matt and his colleague were among the first at their workplace to discover ChatGPT, mere weeks after its release. He says the chatbot transformed their workdays overnight. "It was like discovering a video game cheat," says Matt. "I asked a really technical question from my PhD thesis, and it provided an answer that no one would be able to find without consulting people with very specific expertise. I knew it would be a game changer."

Day-to-day tasks in his fast-paced environment – such as researching scientific topics, gathering sources and producing thorough presentations to clients – suddenly became a breeze. The only catch: Matt and his colleague had to keep their use of ChatGPT a closely guarded secret. They accessed the tool covertly, mostly on working-from-home days.

"We had a significant competitive advantage against our colleagues – our output was so much faster and they couldn't comprehend how. Our manager was very impressed and spoke about our performance with senior management," he says.

Whether the technology is explicitly banned, highly frowned upon or giving some workers a covert leg up, some employees are searching for ways to keep using generative AI tools discreetly. The technology is increasingly becoming an employee backchannel: in a February 2023 study by professional social network Fishbowl, 68% of 5,067 respondents who used AI at work said they don't disclose usage to their bosses.

Even in instances without workplace bans, employees may still want to keep their use of AI hidden, or at least guarded, from peers. "We don't have norms established around AI yet – it can initially look like you're conceding you're not actually that good at your job if the machine is doing many of your tasks," says Johnson. "It's natural that people would want to conceal that."

As a result, forums are popping up for workers to swap strategies for keeping a low profile. In communities like Reddit, many people seek methods of secretly circumventing workplace bans, either through high-tech solutions (integrating ChatGPT into a native app disguised as a workplace tool) or rudimentary ones to obscure usage (adding a privacy screen, or discreetly accessing the technology on their personal phone at their desk).

A former National Security Agency employee from Colorado pleaded guilty Monday to trying to sell classified information to Russia.

Federal prosecutors agreed to not ask for more than about 22 years in prison for Jareh Sebastian Dalke when he is sentenced in April, but the judge will ultimately decide the punishment.

Dalke, a 31-year-old Army veteran from Colorado Springs, had faced a possible life sentence for giving the information to an undercover FBI agent who prosecutors say Dalke believed was a Russian agent.

Dalke was arrested on Sept. 28, 2022, after authorities say he arrived at Denver’s downtown train station with a laptop and used a secure connection set up by investigators to transfer some classified documents.

According to the indictment, the information Dalke sought to give Russia included a threat assessment of the military offensive capabilities of a third, unnamed country. It also includes a description of sensitive U.S. defense capabilities, some of which relates to that same foreign country. He allegedly told the undercover agent that he had $237,000 in debts and that he decided to work with Russia because his heritage “ties back to your country.”

A $10,000 reward is now being offered for information that leads to the arrest of a man accused of fatally shooting a Maryland judge in a "targeted attack" outside his home.

The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday that it is seeking the public's help in finding Pedro Argote, 49, who is wanted in connection with the killing of Washington County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Wilkinson. The shooting occurred hours after the judge gave the Argote's estranged wife custody of their four minor children, according to officials.

Argote has ties to multiple areas outside of Maryland including Brooklyn and Long Island, New York; Columbus, Indiana; and Tampa and Clearwater, Florida, the Marshals Service said in a news release. He also has connections to unknown locations in North Carolina.

Argote should be considered armed and dangerous. He may be driving a silver 2009 Mercedes GL 450, authorities said.

Wilkinson was the judge overseeing Argote’s divorce case, filed in June 2022. On Thursday morning, hours before the shooting, he had presided over a hearing in the case and granted Argote's wife an absolute divorce from him as well as sole legal custody of their four children, ages 12, 11, 5, and 3.

A Detroit synagogue president was found fatally stabbed outside her home Saturday morning.

Samantha Woll, 40, led the congregation of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. The synagogue confirmed Woll's death Saturday in a statement writing, “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the unexpected death of Samantha Woll, our Board President.”

“May her memory be a blessing,” the statement continued.

Authorities said a 911 call was made to Woll's home early Saturday, reporting an individual lying on the ground unresponsive. Police discovered multiple stab wounds on Woll's body and found a trail of blood leading to her house, where they believe the crime occurred.

An investigation is underway. At this time, the motive for the crime remains unknown.